Paradise and Back

By Anna Schlesinger

1973 – Josie, Francis and their three young sons arrive in Samoa seeking a new life, their relationship already precarious. They hope island life will heal their differences but when Francis abandons his family to return to London Josie finds herself marooned. The bottle calls her but she throws herself into work and falls in love. A series of events showing a darker side of Samoa make her question whether this is the right place to bring up her family after all. She returns to England where Francis has a further shock in store…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781291818864

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Paradise and Back

Paradise and Back

ANNA SCHLESINGER

Copyright © 2013 by Anna Schlesinger

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission and writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Anna Schlesinger

Published by www.Lulu.com

ISBN 978-1-291-81886-4

Dedication

For Oscar, Reuben and Luke

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

That this novel is in print is because Caroline Ambrose believed in it - I cannot thank her enough. I am also very grateful to a group of writers in Bath who guided and encouraged me throughout; apart from Caroline they are Jane Riekemann, Jude Higgins, Kate Kenworthy and Dionne Pemberton.

I owe a similar debt to Pat Robson and Reuben Gates who read the entire manuscript and gave me very useful advice.

Although a work of fiction, I am grateful to family members and old friends who gave it birth – and for being who they are.

Finally, to Anthony ‘Ant’ Schlesinger who sadly died before it was completed.

PART ONE: DREAMS

1

Travel is not about destination. The great thing is to

go, to get off the featherbed of civilisation and feel the

global granite underfoot, strewn with cutting flints.

R.L. Stevenson

1973:  TALOFA SAMOA!

The Chief of Police claps three times. ‘Talofa, welcome to Samoa,’ he chants.

The kava-bearer bows towards Francis and murmurs, ‘Manuia, manuia’ before offering him the coconut shell.

‘Soifua,’ echoes around the room - like a death knell.

After nodding to the Chief of Police, Francis takes the shell and spills a few drops of kava on the ground. His white cap tilts back and I watch, disbelieving, as he swallows the hallucinogenic drug. Francis never touches a drop of alcohol in London.

The kava-bearer puts the coconut shell to my lips and I sip the cloudy liquid. It burns my chest, numbs my lips. I pant for breath. Francis and the boys turn misty. I struggle to remember that we’re at the airport sitting in a circle on the floor of a police station, all because Francis considers this an unspoilt society.

Things start liquefying around me. I focus on the doorway and see palm trees sway along the dirt track. My eyelids close. Oh, to taste Frank Cooper’s thick-cut marmalade and glimpse a double-decker bus.

Darkness hovers above, a moccasin nudges my leg, and Francis’ voice is saying, ‘Come on Josephine, we have a lift to Apia.’

I struggle to my feet and, blinking, follow him into the sun; see a policeman piling our cases into a battered car. I get in the back and take Sam on my lap. Tristan is squashed between me and a case. Tom is in the front on Francis’ lap and our police-driver is saying the car is a 1950 Morris. It feels like a Hollywood getaway car to me except this is no film. I pull Sam close and shut my eyes. Do I want this adventure? I have dreamed of travel since childhood, which is why I’ve gone along with Francis up to now; but, it feels creepy here in paradise.

Sam turns to me. ‘What did you and Daddy drink?’ he says.

I struggle with words. ‘Kava. Samoans drink toasts

to welcome visitors and we’re collecting Daddy’s knife

from the police. Remember it was confiscated in Canada?’

Sam stretches his arm to the car roof. ‘The police have knives as big as this.’

‘Those are called machetes.’ I, too, saw them stacked against a wall. The police must think us crazy foreigners to want a piddling little kitchen knife.

Several barefoot policemen form a line as in a guard of honour and I stare at their white helmets crushed onto black curls; silver-grey shirts, wide black belts, and grey knee-length sarongs.

An image of the Fijian police in their brilliant white lavalavas with dog-tooth hems resting on their fat brown knees flashes through my mind. ‘Remember those policemen’s lavalavas in Fiji?’ I whisper to Tristan.

‘The jagged ones?’ he whispers back.

I nod. Everything is jagged now.

The policeman who stacked our cases is in the driver’s seat. He starts the engine the car begins to bump along a red earth track. We wave to the police but they do not respond. The boys hang out of the windows to watch the driver negotiating pot holes.

And now, we are in a hot damp tunnel with emerald trees ablaze with pink bougainvillea, while millions of insects make music among the heavy fruits.

Tristan points ahead. ‘Look, the huts don’t have walls.’ I blink and curse the kava - see a solitary bed in an open-sided hut.

The driver looks at Tristan in the mirror. ‘Huts are called fales,’ he says without any trace of accent.

Bare-chested men stare back at us from inside the fales. Unlike the police, their lavalavas are a variety of colours but all patterned in white hibiscus.

‘The men are wearing kilts,’ Tom says. We laugh.

The driver smiles at Tom. ‘They are called lavalavas. Kilts are only worn in Scotland where Tusi Tala comes from.’

I want to tell the driver the twins are only five but I can hear Francis asking, ‘Is Tusi Tala Robert Louis Stevenson?’

‘Yes, it means teller of tales.’ Our driver’s abrupt tone does not invite further questions.

Villagers crowd the path and the car slows down. My head is clearing. A heavenly fragrance fills the air from the garlands of white flowers that loop the men’s bare chests. Women, in contrast, are covered from neck to toe in lavalava material and some have babies wound to their hips. Both men and women wear hibiscus flowers in their hair. Grouped together, the villagers look strange and exotic – like a chorus from the musical South Pacific.

I squeeze Sam. ‘You’re hurting me, Mummy,’ he says and waves at children who run beside the car their mouths hanging open like a pack of dogs. They do not smile. ‘Why does everyone have black hair?’ Sam asks.

The driver turns and looks at him. ‘Because we are Samoans and you are palagis,’ he says.

‘Palagis?’ Francis asks.

‘Foreigners.’ His tone is negative.

I want to tell him that palagis aren’t all blond, we’re unusual, but I suspect he doesn’t like any palagis. ‘Where will you drop us?’ I ask instead.

‘Apia has two hotels. The Tusitala is near to the market and Aggie Grey’s at the end of Apia Bay.’

Francis glances back at me. I nod and say, ‘Tusitala sounds fine,’ knowing we will not be staying in an hotel of any kind if Francis has his way. We have little money.

It is hot and uncomfortable squashed in the car. Tom manages to dislodge a blue and white paperback that’s been sticking out of Francis’ pocket. It is "Coming of Age in Samoa," by the American sociologist Margaret Mead which he was reading on the plane. Her research into Samoan teenagers experimenting with sex inspired Francis to come here. He dreams of bringing up the boys in a village where there is natural sex, which according to him means sex with whom you fancy. Apparently these societies don’t need drugs or drink, but the idea of us living in the villages we’ve been driving through fills me with horror. I try to shake away the thought that Francis, too, is after easy sex.

The track becomes a tarmac road with western style buildings replacing fales.

‘Apia!’ the driver announces proudly and points to the one storey wooden buildings on stilts. ‘Palagis built those houses when they made the road.’

Tom shouts, ‘I can see the sea.’ And we look at an expanse of water on our left, Voronet blue, with a fringe of dazzling sand.

‘It’s a lagoon,’ the driver says.

‘The boats have sails,’ Sam shouts.

Tristan glances at the driver before saying, ‘They’re yachts, Sam.’ I smile and feel ridiculously pleased he has corrected his brother before our driver does.

And now the policeman points towards a white wooden building at the water’s edge. ‘That is the yacht club for palagis,’ he says in a voice that makes it obvious he doesn’t like palagis.

Tristan peels his arm from the case beside him. ‘I’m thirsty,’ he grumbles.

The driver slows down and nods at some trees. ‘The Tusitala Hotel is over there and you can buy drinks in the market by the lagoon.’

‘Drop us by the market and we’ll walk to the hotel.’ Francis says. ‘Thank you for the lift.’

The car stops beside what must be a mango tree and we rise painfully from our seats. The boys run towards the lagoon while Francis and I stack the suitcases against the tree’s furrowed trunk. Francis hands the policeman some money.

I watch him put it in his pocket, without checking the amount. He drives off without a word. ‘Strange man,’ I say.

‘Probably didn’t want to give us a lift. You stay here with the cases, Josie, while I take the boys to the market for drinks.’

I catch sight of a triangular mountain behind the one-storey wooden buildings across the road. Could it be Mount Vaea with Stevenson’s tomb on top? The air is full of intoxicating smells, some fragrant some spicy. I don’t want to be left alone. ‘Look,’ I say and point to the mountain, ‘we dreamed of this for years.’ My fingers seek his.

Francis withdraws his hand then quickly changes his mind and grips mine. ‘Let’s find somewhere to stay, Josie, and a drink first.’

‘Of course.’

Francis walks off calling to the boys. I sit on an arched tree root, deflated. After all those years dreaming and planning why can’t we register this moment of arriving? I close my eyes and picture the Francis I fell in love with long ago. A striking hero-figure who travelled with his dark curls stuffed into a cap in summer and a Cossack hat in winter. He had a trim beard that tickled when we kissed. I remember our first date in a tiny room at the top of an empty mansion full of joss stick smells and the curry he was cooking. And when he spoke everything he said was different – for Francis only had original thoughts. Over the years our intimacies have waned and now my friends are more important to me. Will I make friends, here in Apia?

I shudder as the boys are swallowed by the shade of an iron roof running parallel with the lagoon. Underneath this sit mountainous women on the baked earth beside mats heaped high with limes, oranges and coconuts. They swat at flies and fan themselves with banana leaves. Whatever do they think when they look at us?

Samoa is quiet, very quiet. A sudden breeze from the lagoon jostles the palms and their leaves make art deco patterns on the sunny beach. If this is Apia Bay, then the famous Aggie Grey Hotel must be at the end, in front of the mountain. The sun is fierce and I haven’t any sunglasses but I see Francis leave the market and walk towards a wooden building with MORRIS HEDSTROM in white capitals. The boys amble back towards me drinking from upturned bottles. Sam keeps stopping – he must be doing battle with the fizzy drink.

Tristan hands me a bottle. ‘Coca Cola!’ he says triumphantly.

I smile conspiratorially. The boys are not allowed Coke at home. ‘Thanks,’ I say and let the liquid cool my throat. I am grateful it’s not coconut milk which I don’t consider quenches thirst.

Tristan sits down beside me. ‘Daddy says we’ll have to boil the water because you can’t buy any in bottles.’

A woman passes with a basket made from green latticed fronds. ‘Banana leaves,’ Tristan tells me proudly. He points, ‘like those mats the ladies sit on over there.’ Francis has been giving them a market lecture.

The twins run up. ‘Samoans eat green bananas,’ Sam tells me.

I laugh. ‘It’s my turn to see the market. You three look after the cases for a few minutes - it’s cool under the tree.’

‘How long will you be?’ Tom asks, always anxious.

‘I’ll be quick. Shout if you need me and keep a look out for Daddy.’

As I walk towards the market, some women heave themselves from the ground and waddle away, slow and easy. They leave their fruit and vegetables on the mats – siesta time perhaps? People here seem to communicate with gestures as much as words even to moving their eyebrows. I look at the vegetables on a mat. Brown roots like knobbly potatoes resemble taro in the books Francis brought home for years. Green leaves, like spinach, are tied in bundles with bits of fibre – from a banana leaf perhaps. Beside them, green ball-like vegetables could be breadfruit. I read somewhere that breadfruit makes excellent chips. I could try them for tonight’s supper.

‘Daddy’s coming,’ Tristan shouts.

I watch all three boys abandon the cases and run towards the road. In front of the Morris Hedstrom building, Francis chats to a young woman with hair to her waist – beautiful.  He saunters along and she is laughing. My fists clench up. Other husbands would have least booked us into a hotel before flirting with the locals. I return to the tree with the cases and watch.

Tristan and Sam reach Francis first and he gives them some packages. When Tom arrives, Francis hooks him onto his back and the girl walks off with a wave. I squint in the bright sun. The boys have difficulty carrying the shopping; perhaps Francis has thought of supper? He’s doing his silly walk that makes Tom laugh. And, yes, Francis is smiling for the first time in months.

He hails a taxi, an old banger, and the boys scramble in. The taxi draws up in front of me and Francis gets out, stands tall and flashes me a smile. His white cap is squashed sideways on his curls and my knees go weak. His blue, blue eyes are happy and make me want to kiss him, be his darling again. I raise my eyebrows, Samoan-style.

‘I’ve rented a bungalow at Vaiala Beach,’

Francis says proudly.

We load the cases into the car while the taxi-

driver remains in his seat.

‘For how long?’

‘Three weeks. We are house-sitting for a couple who are in American Samoa - on holiday in PagoPago.’ I remember Francis ranting on about American Samoa, an island to the east and colonised by the Americans, who according to him are killing off traditional culture. ‘How does PagoPago compare with Apia?’ Francis asks the driver.

‘I don’t go to American Samoa,’ the driver says.

Francis is silent; this kind of comment will make him determined that we live in a village. He reckons PagoPago is now an outpost of the USA with its modern bungalows and western clothes replacing fales and lavalavas.

‘It’s a Buick, Mum,’ Tristan tells me as I squeeze into the back again.

Francis points to the mountain behind the shops. ‘Look at Mt Vaea,’ he says and we strain our necks to glimpse the summit burnished in the afternoon sun. My pores tingle with excitement. Stevenson made this mountain his by building a large house at its base and routinely climbing to the top. When he died local people hacked a path to the summit and carried cement for his grave - a track now called The Road of the Loving Heart.

I look back to the road we’re on which curves around Apia Bay. Wooden buildings of all shapes and sizes face the water and a large store, Burns Philp, is squashed between the Wesley Bookshop and the Post Office. But the grandest structure is the Bank of Western Samoa, slap bang beside a bus station full of wooden multi-coloured single-deckers, all with rasping engines. We reach the end of the bay where the famous Aggie Grey Hotel sleeps among the trees. How I’d love to stroll along its thatched veranda and spend a night in a bedroom with a four poster bamboo bed. Oh Francis, if only we’d met here among the palms. I feel a frisson, just fantasising.

The wharf to our left is lined with fishing boats and canoes hewn from trees and there is a rusting ship. But the taxi is taking a right fork along a track beside an inlet of the lagoon. Here, flowering bushes and tall dark palms hang over the water and only our engine breaks the silence. Without warning, a decorated long boat flashes into view, its crew wearing red bandannas. Their oars strike the water in a rhythm that seems centuries old and the boat zips forward silently, glistening like an arrow. We continue to bump along the track. Our eyes search for a bungalow among the trees and after two hundred yards or so the driver stops in front of a hedge of red oleanders. Behind the hedge, there is a leaf green wooden bungalow with three white steps and a latticed porch.

We tumble out of the car and the boys run into the garden.

‘Wonderful!’ I say and steady myself on the car door.

After paying the driver Francis comes over and squeezes my hand. We linger together beside the cases until the taxi drives off. Then, he tweaks my ear, jangles the keys in his pocket and says, ‘So far, so good.’

I watch him study the iron roof as if checking it’s in good shape and then he picks up the heavy case containing his research and hurries past a row of banana plants. ‘Mosquitoes are bad in early evening so we must stop them getting in the house. Listen lads, when I open the door run in quickly,’ Francis calls out.

Tom leans over the porch. ‘The windows don’t have glass,’ he says.

Francis turns the key in the lock. ‘It’s too hot for glass so there’s netting instead.’

‘What if it rips?’ Sam asks.

‘Netting doesn’t rip if you play football well away from the house – you understand me, Sam?’ Then Francis ruffles his hair knowing he’s been too sharp.

I rest two suitcases on the porch and wipe my face. ‘Just go in, Francis, Sam hasn’t even brought a football.’

Francis pushes open the door and we tumble into a hall with a diamond-shaped wooden floor. The boys inspect the surrounding rooms while Francis heads along a narrow corridor. In the back I find a kitchen, dark and wonderfully cool. When I switch on the light hundreds of cockroaches scatter from the draining board. Help, I mustn’t scream, I’m meant to be a traveller! I swipe them with a tea towel and knock an electric fan to the floor; then sit on a chair and shiver in the heat. I’ll never make supper if I imagine insects in every nook and cranny.

The twins shout to Tristan to bring a bed into their room. Hmm, I’ll say who sleeps where – at least with regard to the boys. In one of Francis’ bags I discover bread, tomatoes and a tin of fish. I put them on the table and look in the cupboards for plates. Then pick up the fan and wonder if its whirring will keep the cockroaches at bay. I won’t put it to the test tonight; with us both so tense I don’t want to be accused of wasting electricity.

It is five-thirty and I decide to get the boys’ beds sorted out before supper. I head towards the noise and pass a room beside the kitchen which has a double bed. All three boys are jumping on a king-size bed in a room that faces the lagoon. If there is a spare single somewhere they’ll be able to sleep together. I look for Francis at the end of the corridor and find him lying on a single bed reading, his suitcase of papers on a twin bed alongside. Water laps softly outside the window – it is an ideal place for writing.

Francis fans himself with his book and looks up. ‘My god, it’s hot,’ he says.

‘Take your cap off, then,’ I snap. ‘Tristan needs one of these beds.’

‘Fine, that’ll make space for a fan. I saw some

for sale in Morris Hedstrom.’ He gets up and puts the suitcase on the floor. I don’t mention the kitchen fan. We carry the single bed along the corridor in silence and manoeuvre it into the boys’ room.

Tom is staring through the netting. ‘Look, Dad, the lights have gone out.’

Francis walks over to him. ‘It gets dark suddenly in the tropics, Tom. Daylight goes by six o’clock when night begins.’

My mother used to talk about instant night when she lived in Egypt in the thirties. ‘I wonder if the palagis here still have sundowners,’ I muse out loud.

Francis swings round. ‘Let’s hope the Samoans have thrown out the colonials and their bad habits. We’re here to escape alcohol, aren’t we?’

Ah, yes, we are.

After supper, Francis says he’ll supervise the boys’ bath time. He takes the fan to his room without a word. I drag my suitcase into the double bedroom beside the kitchen and start to unpack. Will Francis join me, I wonder? He suddenly stopped sleeping with me a few weeks before we left London. I couldn’t understand why – and still don’t. I change into a cool cotton nightie and look at myself in the mirror. No way can I compete with Samoan beauty!

The boys are silent so I tiptoe to their room and find them rolled up in sheets like grinning mummies.

I kiss each hot cheek in turn. ‘What a lovely surprise for me on our first day in Samoa. Night, night, laddos!’ I haven’t the heart to ask if they’ve cleaned their teeth.

‘Night,’ they mumble back. Tears smart my eyes. Have we done the right thing in bringing them to a remote speck of land in the South Pacific?

I turn off the light. It is as black as pitch. I feel my way along the corridor towards the beacon of light at the end - Francis’ room. He is lying on the bed fully clothed.

Something moves on the floor. ‘Cockroach,’ I gasp, ‘On its back, waving its legs in the air.’

He watches me. ‘Don’t worry, Josie. If it’s on its back it’s dying.’ His voice is gentle and he calls me Josie not Josephine. I shake my shoulder to make my nightie strap drop from my shoulder and move closer to the bed. Francis inches to one side.

I sit on the bed and slide my hand over the cover towards his. ‘My bed’s cockroach-free - coming?’ I joke. My fingers touch his and he moves his hand away.

‘I miss my music. It’s the only way I can take my mind off this heat.’

‘We’ll adapt to your unspoilt society,’ I say gently.

‘We won’t get the chance unless you find a job. Must tackle that tomorrow-’

‘Not tomorrow, Francis,’ I shout and leap off the bed. ‘Give me one day to look around. We’ll find you some music­-’

‘Aren’t you worried, Josephine? Three weeks of this rent will use up our cash and that means we’ll have to go on to New Zealand when our visa expires. We’ve only single tickets, remember?’

I sit down again and look him in the eye. ‘Okay,

go through the job strategy, then.’

‘First, find the Education Department and tell them the same story you gave New Zealand House when you applied for our visa extension. Stress you’re "a teacher seeking overseas experience." Talk about the beauty of the island and how it would be a privilege for your children to be educated here, etcetera.’

‘Right, I’ll get my head around the details in the morning. You’d better turn that fan off as we can’t afford it,’ I say and stumble back along the black corridor.

The boys’ room is quiet. I reach the double bedroom and climb into bed, lie on my back and listen to rain pounding on the corrugated roof. I think of Somerset Maugham’s short story Rain which is set in PagoPago. That is a place I’ve always wanted to go to and it will never happen if it’s up to Francis. Being anti-colonial makes sense but he is now blaming me for every difficulty. Samoa was his choice, his vision, and he should be grateful I’ve been half-way round the world to make his dream come true.  I pull the sheet to my chin and listen to the heavy downpour. Night sounds in Samoa will take some getting used to just as traffic in London once did. Without street lighting the room is charcoal black. But something moves – the door opens. I hold my breath and wait.

Francis glides across the room. ‘It’s only me,

Josie, it’s lonely without you.’ I am suddenly breathless and lift the sheet. His body is hot beside me. ‘It’s going to be alright, you’ll see. You’re my clever darling…’ he whispers.

As he strokes me, I nuzzle into his chest which becomes wet with my tears, grateful tears. We are back on track again.

2

…and look out on the white sand under the high palms

and a gentle sea and the black line of a reef a mile out. It is sheer beauty, so pure it is difficult to breathe in it.

Letter, Rupert Brooke

A CARD TO A COUNTESS

The Bank of Western Samoa is air-conditioned and I shiver in my missionary dress, the one I brought for interviews. It is sky-blue cotton, belted at the waist, with short sleeves and a high scooped neckline.

A clerk, in a navy lavalava and white shirt, comes towards me with his arm extended. ‘Talofa, welcome to Samoa.’

‘Talofa. Can you tell me where I can find the Department of Education?’

‘I will show you,’ he says, and leads me out of the bank and into the bus station. Through a haze of exhaust, I follow his pointing finger to the outline of Mount Vaea. ‘The Education Offices are on the road that goes up the mountain. Any bus with Vailima on the front will take you there. Tofa soifua,’ he says and bows.

‘Tofa soifua,’ I repeat.

I report back to Francis, who is waiting with the boys in the shade. The five of us venture into the dazzling sunlight to look for a bus. I read Lefifi on a turquoise one with a purple roof and red windows that is about to leave. And a black and green bus has Moto’otua on the front. Tristan shouts, ‘I’ve found it,’ and I see him clamber into a green and yellow bus, with Francis and the twins following. I hurry over hoping for cool wooden seats; my dress is already patterned with damp grey patches where it sticks to my skin. My spirits plummet - I am a mess already.

The bus driver revs the engine and a cloud of charcoal-coloured exhaust billows in through the empty window frames. After a few hundred yards the bus begins to climb the mountain and my nerves rattle with its raucous voice. Passengers chatter in a mixture of English and Samoan and several men with briefcases wear navy lavalavas and white shirts like the bank clerk. Most people are barefoot, rubber flip flops being an exception. The gradient increases, and the bus hesitates when the driver changes gear.

I look round at the boys and see a woman stroking Tristan’s hair. She catches my eye and smiles. ‘Very white, very straight,’ she says.

Tristan leans towards her and grins. Sam offers his head but the bus shudders to a stop and the woman gets out. We have reached a school and beyond it a hospital, both one-storey wooden buildings with concrete foundations. The bus sets off again, its ancient engine grumbling. Ahead of us, Mt. Vaea’s jade coloured slopes shine like crumpled velvet in the sun. I catch my breath. I have only seen forests like this in films.

The bus stops further up the hill and the